A Different Kind of Pain
by Stirling Phoenix
Summary: Bronzeshipping Oneshot! Can the embodiment of pure hatred find love? If it can, how does hatred express love?


Disclaimer!!- I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!, but if I did the show would be full of yaoi!!

Rated T for abuse and mild shonen ai.

**A Different Kind of Pain**

Darkness can not exist without its light.

Summer in Domino City is a time of happiness. People were everywhere, laughing, enjoying each other's company, and having an all around good time. Of course in cases like these there always seems to be one exception that is immune to the rays of happiness that the sun shines upon the earth. He was oblivious to all of the merriment around him as he bitterly walked down the streets of Domino. No one dared to include him in their fun, for on his face was a never ending death glare. Because of this death glare no one dared to laugh at his ridiculous spiky blonde hair. Even if someone had been foolish enough to address him it wouldn't have had an effect, for he was buried too deep in thought to notice.

He had forgotten how nice the world of the living truly is. For so long he had been wondering in the darkness with no hope of seeing the light again, or so he thought. For reasons he could not fathom, someone had used pure willpower to bring his being back into existence. Honestly what he found most surprising about this situation was not the fact that his soul had brought back to the land of the living in the first place, but rather the person who had so desperately wanted him back that the gods had seen fit to smile upon him, his hikari.

In the past he had shown nothing but hatred towards his hikari, for that is all he had ever known. He had been born of pure hatred, so it was only natural. But ever since he had been brought back into this world, a feeling that he did not understand had been coming to him. This unrecognizable feeling kept growing and getting stronger and stronger each day. He currently was feeling this strange attachment towards his hikari. He didn't want him just for his body, but for his being as well.

Whenever his hikari had shown him affection, he had always laughed, punched or simply ignored his hikari. His hikari had been expressing to him a feeling that his hikari called love. Love, he didn't understand the meaning of the word. If it was the emotion that caused people to do stupid things and act really strange, then to him love was pointless. However, he couldn't help but wonder, what was this strange feeling that he possessed? Could it possibly be love? Was that even possible? How could love come from a being that had been born of sheer hatred? How this ever came to be, he would never know, but after a lot of contemplation he could come up with no other answer.

He wanted nothing else but to have someone he could be with at all times, someone who would love him unconditionally, someone who wanted him for the person he truly was, someone he could trust to keep his darkest thoughts and secrets kept silent within the depths of his soul, someone who could help him escape from this hell of loneliness. Simply put, he wanted a lover, more specifically, he wanted his hikari, the one person in this world who had the power to understand him and know what he was going through, for his hikari was closer to him than most people would realize.

There was only one problem left to solve. Should he confess his feelings? On one hand, he felt that it would be foolish, what did he need love for? It was only a stupid emotion that could end in heart break anyway. On the other hand, he was Marik Ishtar, since when did he ever need a reason for wanting or needing something? Never, thats when! He was the embodiment of hatred itself, he could do whatever he wanted and he could have whatever he wanted, no questions asked.

Marik decided to go with the latter of the two options. It made him feel more secure with himself, so he could be confident with his actions and be in control, he was used to being in control of his emotions. With his final decision made up, Marik cut his walk short and went to the apartment that he and hikari now resided in.

He knew that he would make his hikari happy, this after all, was what Malik had wanted for awhile now. Marik just had too much pride to come to terms with the simple fact that he harbored feelings for his hikari too. Making people happy, a good deed, Marik was never fond of doing good deeds, but this affair would make him happy too, and that's all that really mattered. Seeing his skyscraper apartment building in the distance, Marik quickened his pace to his destination. Casually, he entered the building and walked over to the elevator. When Marik pressed the 'up' button, he looked down at his hands in shock. He hadn't realized that his hands were now cold and clammy and the rest of his body was sweating uncontrollably. This strange feeling of 'love' that he had recently come to accept was invading his mind with many other unwelcome emotions; fear, nervousness, for example.

After what seemed like forever, the elevator finally got to the twenty-third story. When they had first moved here Marik had asked Malik why he wanted to live on the highest floor of the building. Carelessly, Malik had replied,

"Oh, I don't know, I just like the view I guess. Just look, you can see the whole city from here, it would look really pretty in the sunset don't you think?"

Marik shrugged and ignored his hikari. He couldn't have cared less where he lived, anything was better than the shadow realm. Recently though, Marik had noticed his hikari staring out the window and watching the sun set over the city.

Flash Back

He admitted that the sunset was nice, but what really caught his attention was Malik. The few rays of sun that still remained fell upon Malik, giving him an almost angelic glow. A smile appeared on his lips. Marik wondered why his light was so happy. What was there to be happy about? Being the insensitive jerk that he was, Marik decided to ruin his concentration by tauntingly asking,

"Why are you so happy?"

Malik was jumpy by nature and this unexpected break in thought startled him a bit. Malik's tan face blushed several shades of red and replied, "Oh, umm, nothing."

Marik chuckled and said, "Yeah right! I don't need to use the mind link to know that you were thinking about me again. Keep dreaming little one, it's never going to happen."

"You are so conceited. For your information, I was not thinking about you!"

"You're a terrible liar."

Malik huffed, "Whatever, just leave me alone."

End Flash Back

Marik hesitantly entered apartment 2323. He looked around Malik was nowhere to be seen. The many mirrors that covered the apartment's walls were shining, the floor had been swept, the counter tops were sparkling, and everything had been put in its right place. Either Malik had gone on a cleaning spree or Ryou had come over. Both hikaris liked a clean home, but Ryou was the one who was obsessive about cleaning, and this looked like an obsessive job to him. Marik walked into the living room and sat down in one of the leather reclining rocking chairs. Trying to calm himself, Marik began to rock back and forth, but the attempt to calm down failed miserably. Wanting to talk to his light immediately, Marik called out,"Malik! Where are you?"

From a room down the hall came the reply, "Hold on a sec. I just took a shower and I'm getting dressed.

This caused obscene images to form in Marik's mind. He wanted his hikari NOW. After a few moments Marik's patience gave in. Marik impatiently called out, "Malik I want to speak to you NOW damn it!"

The smaller of the two Egyptians hastily came out of his bedroom and sat down in the same style of chair that Marik was in, only it was facing the opposite direction. The light gave his his darkness a glare, "Dear ra, you have the patience of child!"

The Darkness reasoned, "Well technically, you are eleven years my senior, therefore I have the right to act like one."

Malik scowled, "I highly doubt that the average seven year old would have your reasoning skills or try to take over the world and almost succeed!"

"Ha! I would have succeeded too, if only _someone_ hadn't got in the way." Marik gave is hikari a glare.

Innocently, Malik replied, "Oh I wonder who that could have been..."

Marik's glare became even harder. "Yeah, me too." Wanting to change the subject but procrastinate the unavoidable conversation a little longer, Marik asked, "Why is the house so clean, did Ryou come over?"

"No, today was my day off from work and I had nothing better to do."

"What about school?"

"I didn't feel like going."

Marik couldn't really blame his hikari there. Unlike himself, Malik liked the friendship group but even he found them to be annoying at times. Marik still didn't want to begin his conversation. Whatever happened to his control? Probably on a coffee break. Anyway, with nothing else to say except for the obvious, Marik got up to go to his room. Malik stopped him unexpectedly.

"I know that you didn't need to talk to me just about the cleanliness of the apartment, now what do you want?", inquired Malik.

It was Marik's turn to play the innocent act. "Why do you always suspect me of having a motive to talk to you? Can I not talk to you just to talk?"

"That's not how you work."

"How would you know? What do you know about me?" Marik was starting to get irritated.

"Quite a lot actually, remember, I created you."

Damn, Malik was good! There was no why that his hikari was going to let this slide. Dejectedly, he sat back down into the chair. "Okay I'll talk."

This surprised Malik. "Wow! You're not going to lead me on or make me beg?!"

Marik sighed, "Just forget about it."

"Okay! Sorry, I'll listen."

"Good." Marik got up and knelt down before his hikari, took his hands, and said, "Malik, I--I think I'm in love with you. I want to be with you, I want to be there for you when you need help, I want you to be there for me when I need help. I'm sorry that I've been rejecting you all this time, but I've finally come to terms with myself and I'm finally ready to give you the love you deserve."

Marik wasn't sure of the reaction that he would get, but what he got was far from what he expected.

Malik burst into an uncontrollable fit of laugher. "Oh Marik! That's a good one! I'll admit you had me going there for a minute!"

In a state of confusion and shock Marik pleaded, "B-but I was serious!"

"Sure you were. Now let me get up, I'm going to make dinner."

"Why don't you believe me?"

"You haven't given me any reason to believe you."

"You're heartless!" snapped Marik.

"Well it would take a heartless person to create hatred wouldn't it?" Malik snapped back. "Honestly, you're taking you little 'joke' way too far, just drop it already."

Marik was getting angry now. "No! I won't drop it. We're going to be together and you're going to like it!"

Receiving a blow to the face, Marik took a few steps back and looked at his furious hikari who was now getting up.

Letting all of his bottled up frustrations go in one statement, Malik screamed at the top of his lungs, "STOP IT!! EVEN IF I DID BELIEVE YOU, I WOULDN'T CARE. I'M OVER YOU NOW, I WANT SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY CARES FOR ME AND YOU'RE NOT THAT PERSON!!"

What little self control Marik had left melted instantly in Malik's last statement. Without thinking, he forcefully grabbed a hold of his light by the shoulders and yelled with volume equal to Malik's, "LIAR! YOU DO TO CARE FOR ME! IF YOU DIDN'T WHY WOULD YOU BRING ME BACK FROM THE SHADOW REALM?!"

"Stop it! You can't treat me like this! Let go, you're hurting me!" cried Malik.

"HA! I think you'll find that I can treat you however I please. But I'll be generous just this once, you want to be let go, FINE!" and with that, the darkness threw his light into one of the mirrors.

The light crashed into the mirror, letting a painful scream escape his body. As he fell to the floor the broken glass showered him, leaving his body decorated with multiple cuts and blood. Malik was now crying, but it wasn't from the pain. "Why are you doing this?" he cried.

Marik was dumbstruck. The realization of what he had just done came rushing to him, clawing at his very soul. He had taken things way too, far. He hadn't meant to make his light cry, and now every tear that poured from Malik's face was like taking a dagger to his heart. With no other option left to him, he ran from the apartment.

Malik laid on the floor for a few minutes, trying to absorb the shock. Moments passed until he finally found the strength to pick himself up off the floor. He went to the bathroom to examine the damage. After soaking a washcloth with warm water and soap, he tended to his cuts. He found that the cuts were only minor and not deep, so the bleeding stopped quickly. He was thankful that his wounds would be able to heal relatively quickly. With his physical pain taken care of, his mind began to wander about the devastating emotional pain. He hadn't felt this lonely since the pharaoh had originally sent his yami to the shadow realm. Back then he had been thankful, but a little feeling of loneliness constantly lingered with him.

"Could my yami really love me?" he wandered aloud. Voices in his head started going out of control in his mind, thinking of possible reasons and explanations.

'It's impossible, he can't love you, he's pure hatred!'

'That's not true! Hatred is taught but love comes naturally to everyone.'

'Who cares if he really does love you. You can't go to him, not after this.'

As weird as it may sound, Malik responded back to these thoughts.

'But he only did this to me because he loves me, he wouldn't have gone this far if it were only a joke.'

'So?'

'Marik must be confused to all of these new feelings inside of him. He doesn't know how to control himself.'

'Confusion is not justification for hurting you.'

'I don't care! Anything is better than this loneliness I feel right now!'

Wasting no time, Malik ran from the apartment to the place where he knew his yami would be.

The sun had set a few hours ago. The wind bit at his skin as he sat alone on top of a twenty-three story building in the darkness. For some reason tonight it was really cold, especially considering it was the middle of summer. Marik didn't mind though, perhaps the bitter cold would mend his heart back into the cold black thing that it once was. Marik's own mind began to wander.

'How stupid can I get? I knew telling him the truth was the wrong thing to do.'

'Confessing your feelings was supposed to make you feel better.'

'Then how come I feel even worse than before?'

'Maybe it had something to do with the fact that you hurt him both physically and emotionally.'

This is why Marik never liked probing his own mind. It always seemed to betray him. His concentration was interrupted when a certain blonde haired hikari opened the door that opened up to the roof of the building. Lavender eyes locked onto dark purple almost blue, ones until the latter finally spoke up.

"Go away."

"Marik, I need to talk to you.", begged Malik

"I don't care." replied Marik.

Ignoring that last statement, Malik continued, "Marik you were right, I still have feelings for you. When you were in the shadow realm, I was always lonely, even if I was surrounded by people I felt alone because I knew that no one was there for me and I didn't like it. I wanted someone who cared for me, I thought about it for awhile, and that's when I remembered you. You were born because you cared. I probably would have died that night if you hadn't been there to save me from my father."

"The only reason I killed your father was because of your hatred for him."

"Oh stop it Marik!", cried Malik was he ran over and knelt down to his yami. Malik took his cold hands and whispered, "I love you, Marik."

Marik replied, "I love you too, Malik, but we can never be together."

Malik was utterly confused by this. "Why not?"

"Because," Marik sighed, "this feeling of love confuses me and gives me other feelings that I never knew existed. I don't want to hurt you again Malik, but I don't understand myself right now, so I can't promise you that I won't hurt you again."

The light tightly embraced his darkness. "I don't care, the only thing I want you to promise me is to never let me feel the pain of loneliness again."

Marik hugged his hikari closer to him and whispered, "I promise."

Malik smiled and buried himself in his lover's chest, for he knew that as long as he and Marik were together, they would never be alone again.


End file.
